2 – Five weeks after New Brunswickers went to the polls, the minority Liberal government of Premier Brian Gallant fell on a confidence vote. Progressive Conservative leader Blaine Higgs became the premier-designate after meeting with Lt.-Gov. Jocelyne Roy Vienneau and said he wanted the transition of power to occur as quickly as possible.

2 – Police said officers were hurt and 12 people charged after a rally to protest a controversial debate featuring former White House strategist Steve Bannon in Toronto. The charges included trespassing, disorderly conduct and assault of a police officer.

2 – The Trump administration announced the return of all U.S. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. The sanctions covered Iran’s shipping, financial and energy sectors.

3 – Accelerate took the lead at the top of the stretch and held off Gunnevera to win the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic by a length.

4 – The tiny Pacific territory of New Caledonia voted by 56 per cent to remain part of France in a long-awaited independence referendum. It was the first of three possible referenda on the territory’s future.

4 – Brash American shareholder activist Evelyn Y. Davis, who owned stock in more than 80 public companies and rarely failed to make her presence known at corporate-investor meetings, died in Washington at the age of 89.

5 – The federal government said it had shortchanged hundreds of thousands of veterans and their survivors over seven years, and was preparing to compensate them a total of $165 million. Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan said his department miscalculated adjustments to the disability pensions of 270,000 veterans between 2003 and 2010 because it didn’t properly account for a change in personal tax exemptions.

5 – Lowe’s Companies Inc. announced it was closing 31 properties across Canada in a bid to streamline its business. The closures included 27 stores, two regional support centres in Mississauga, Ont. and St. John’s, N.L., a truss plant in St. John’s, N.L. and a block plant in Kamloops, B.C.

5 – Irving Pulp and Paper Ltd. was hit with one of largest penalties ever imposed in Canada for an environmental violation. The company, based in Saint John, N.B., was fined $3.5 million for dumping improperly treated effluent into the Saint John River over a two-year period.

5 – The woman in charge of CBC’s English-language TV, radio, and online services announced she was leaving the public broadcaster to “pursue other opportunities.” Heather Conway had spent five years overseeing all platforms, including CBC-TV, CBC News Network, CBC Radio One and Two and CBC.ca.

5 – A United Nations report said Earth’s protective ozone layer is healing. So is the gaping ozone hole over the South Pole. Experts credited a 1987 treaty that banned ozone-depleting chemicals and new technology for the global environmental success story.

6 – American voters lined up to deliver their verdict on President Donald Trump in the U.S. midterm elections following a campaign marked by fear, falsehoods and division. The Republicans made gains in the Senate while Democrats turned the tide in the House of Representatives, forming a majority that gave them more power to subpoena cabinet members, investigate the president’s ties to Russia and compel the release of his tax returns.

6 – Former Quebec premier and longtime Parti Quebecois stalwart Bernard Landry died at the age of 81. His death prompted a stream of accolades from his former colleagues about his patriotism, his love of the Quebec people and his conviction that the province would inevitably become a country.

6 – Longtime Conservative MP Tony Clement announced he was stepping down as the party’s justice critic and from committee duties after he was caught in an online sextortion scam. Clement said he sent sexually explicit images and a video to someone he thought was a “consenting female” but who demanded money to keep the material from being made public. Party leader Andrew Scheer said he accepted Clement’s assurances it was a one-time lapse in judgment. But the next day he announced Clement had been ousted from the party caucus after new information suggested it was not an isolated incident.

7 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed his government would do more to protect synagogues and other places of worship from violence as part of an apology for anti-Semitic policies that denied refuge in Canada to Jews fleeing the Holocaust.

7 – A parole board panel denied both full and day parole to a drunk driver who killed three young children and their grandfather in a crash north of Toronto in2015. The panel said 32-year-old Marco Muzzo continued to minimize his problems with alcohol and must address the issue before he could be released into the community.

7 – Days after the resignation of a senior Ontario cabinet minister was announced, Premier Doug Ford confirmed Jim Wilson was forced to leave cabinet and the Progressive Conservative caucus after facing an allegation of sexual misconduct. Ford’s office had initially said Wilson resigned as economic development minister to seek treatment for addiction issues.

7 – The Trudeau government announced new rules to make it tougher for federal prisoners serving lengthy sentences to be transferred to Indigenous healing lodges. The change followed a public outcry over the transfer of an Ontario woman, convicted in the 2009 murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford of Woodstock, to a healing lodge in Saskatchewan from a traditional prison. Terry-Lynne McClintic was returned to prison after the changes were announced.

7 – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out as the country’s chief law enforcement officer after enduring more than a year of blistering and personal attacks from President Donald Trump over his recusal from the Russia investigation. Trump named Sessions’ chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney from Iowa, as acting attorney general.

7 – Terrified patrons hurled barstools through windows to escape or threw their bodies protectively on top of friends as a Marine combat veteran killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Dressed all in black with his hood pulled up, the gunman apparently took his own life as scores of police converged on the Borderline Bar & Grill.

8 – The deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century swept through the northern California community of Paradise, about 290 kilometres north of San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people scrambled to flee the fire, which destroyed nearly 14,000 homes and killed 85 people. Several lawsuits had been filed against Pacific Gas and & Electric Co. by the end of November, alleging it could have prevented the fire. The cause remained under investigation but the utility had reported an outage on a transmission line near the time and place where the fire began.

8 – A wind-whipped wildfire erupted in southern California, spreading destruction from Thousand Oaks to Malibu, west of Los Angeles. By the time the Woolsey Fire was 100 per cent contained on Nov. 22, it had killed three people and destroyed about 1,600 homes and other buildings.

8 – Free speech advocates were outraged after the White House revoked the press credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta. The network’s chief White House correspondent had his media pass cancelled after a 90-minute news conference in the East Room that saw President Donald Trump engage in several heated exchanges with reporters.

8 – Fire destroyed significant parts of Northmart, the largest retail store in the capital of Nunavut. On Nov. 15 a youth was charged in connection with the fire, one of six blazes in Iqaluit. Police believed five of those were arson.

8 – Bombardier Inc. announced it would cut 5,000 jobs company-wide and sell off two units as part of a five-year plan to rein in costs, focus on rail and business jets and reduce the net long-term debt of $9 billion. About 2,500 Bombardier workers were being laid off in Quebec and 500 in Ontario, with the 2,000 other cuts occurring overseas.

8 – A Montana judge ruled the $10-billion Keystone XL pipeline must pass a further environmental review. The decision was announced as Calgary-based TransCanada was preparing to build the first stages of the oil pipeline in northern Montana. The company said it remained committed to the project despite the setback.

8 – Statistics Canada’s controversial plan to harvest personal financial data without people’s consent was put on hold pending the completion of an investigation of the legality and intrusiveness of the project. The federal agency caught nine financial institutions off guard by informing them they were required to provide banking information on Canadians in 500,000 households across the country.

8 – The captain of a Missouri tourist “duck boat” that sank during a storm in July, killing 17 people, was charged with misconduct, negligence and inattention to duty in an indictment by a federal grand jury. U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison said Kenneth Scott McKee, 51, was accused of not properly assessing the weather before or after the boat went into Table Rock Lake near the tourist town of Branson.

9 – Blaine Higgs was sworn-in as the 34th premier of New Brunswick, just a week after the Liberal government of Brian Gallant was defeated on a confidence vote. At the age of 64, Higgs was the oldest person to assume the job of premier in a province with a history of choosing young leaders.

9 – The Supreme Court of Canada ruled the Constitution allows Ottawa and the provinces to set up a national securities regulator. It also found that federal draft legislation for countrywide oversight of stocks, bonds and other investments falls within Parliament’s powers over trade and commerce.

10 – Hilary Knight scored twice as the United States women’s hockey team claimed its fourth straight Four Nations Cup title with a 5-2 win over host Canada. Holders of the world and Olympic titles, the American women reinforced their status as the top women’s team in the world by beating their archrivals on home ice at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon.

11 – Canadians marked the 100th anniversary of the end of First World War at Remembrance Day ceremonies across the country. Anita Cenerini of Winnipeg, who lost her son to suicide that was later linked to his military service in Afghanistan, was named the 2018 Silver Cross Mother.

13 – Calgarians headed to the polls in a plebiscite on whether the city should host the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. More than 56 per cent voted no. Calgary city council voted unanimously on Nov. 19 to wind up the bid corporation.

14 – Police launched an investigation into an alleged sexual assault at a prestigious private school in Toronto. St. Michael’s College School notified parents that it had expelled a number of students after receiving videos two days earlier. One showed bullying of a student in a washroom in an apparent hazing. Police sources said the other involved a group of football team members sexually assaulting a student in a locker room. The school later confirmed eight students were expelled and one was suspended.

15 – Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government announced plans to eliminate three independent legislative watchdogs, including the French language services commissioner, and scrap a planned French-language university. The cuts were laid out in the government’s Fall Economic Statement for 2018-2019 – its first major fiscal update since taking power in June.

15 – Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor said the kingdom would seek the death penalty against five men suspected of killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S. slapped sanctions on 17 Saudi officials in the toughest action it had taken against the kingdom since the slaying.

15 – Country star Roy Clark, the guitar virtuoso and singer who headlined the cornpone TV show “Hee Haw” for nearly a quarter-century and was known for such hits as “Yesterday When I was Young” and “Honeymoon Feeling,” died at 85.

16 – A U.S. federal judge granted a temporary order for the Trump administration to reinstate CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press pass, which had been revoked after he clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump at a news conference. It would only be in effect during CNN’s lawsuit challenging the revocation but Judge Timothy Kelly said he believed the network would succeed in its claim that Acosta’s constitutional right to due process had been violated.

16 – Academy Award winning screenwriter and author William Goldman died in Manhattan at age 87. Goldman won Oscars for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men.” He also wrote numerous novels, including “The Princess Bride” and “Marathon Man” which were also adapted into screenplays.

19 – Toronto police announced six boys aged 14 and 15 years old had been charged in an alleged sexual assault at St. Michael’s College School that appeared to be related to hazing. The accused were charged with assault, gang assault and sexual assault with a weapon.

20 – A mistrial was declared in the retrial of Dennis Oland in the 2011 bludgeoning death of his businessman father. Justice Terrence Morrison of the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench dismissed the 16-member jury and ordered that the second degree murder trial continue the next day by judge alone. Morrison said he took the highly unusual step due to “improprieties” in jury selection involving a Saint John police officer.

20 – Consumers in the U.S. and Canada were advised to stop eating romaine lettuce because of an E. coli outbreak. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also demanded that retailers and restaurants pull the lettuce from store shelves and stop including it in meals. But in Canada, the country’s public health and food inspection agencies stopped short of insisting on its removal, despite it being linked to the illnesses of 19 people in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. Six required hospitalization.

20 – The NHL Alumni Association announced that former NHL coach and player Dan Maloney had died at age 68. Maloney was a feared fighter with a scoring touch in his playing days. He went on to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets.

21 – Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s fall fiscal update included new measures to boost investment in Canada that would cost $17.1 billion over five years. The measures were in response to the U.S. move in January to cut its corporate tax rate to 21 per cent from 35 per cent.

21 – Curler Ryan Fry announced he would be taking an indefinite leave from Team Brad Jacobs to focus on his “growth and self-improvement.” The move came after Fry, who played at the World Curling Tour event as a substitute, was disqualified at the Red Deer Curling Classic along with teammates Jamie Koe, Chris Schille and DJ Kidby for what organizers called unsportsmanlike behaviour resulting from excessive drinking. All four players later issued statements apologizing for their actions.

21 – The Ontario government passed sweeping labour reform legislation, effectively rolling back many changes brought in by the previous Liberal regime. Among other things, the law froze the province’s minimum wage at $14 an hour until 2020 and eliminated two paid personal leave days a year for workers.

21 – Interpol elected South Korean delegate Kim Jong Yang as the organization’s president, edging out a veteran of Russia’s security services who was strongly opposed by the United States, Britain and other European nations.

22 – A Winnipeg man was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for at least 10 years for sending letter bombs to his ex-wife and two lawyers in 2015, one of whom suffered serious injuries. Guido Amsel, 52, had earlier been convicted on four charges of attempted murder and numerous other offences.

22 – Toronto’s St. Michael’s College School announced the principal and board president had resigned so the prestigious private all-boys Catholic school could move forward without distraction as it dealt with multiple allegations of assault and sexual assault by students. The resignations of principal Greg Reeves and board president Father Jefferson Thompson followed a wave of criticism after the school failed to promptly report the alleged incidents to police.

22 – Raj Grewal announced his immediate resignation as the Liberal MP for the Ontario riding of Brampton East, citing unspecified personal and medical reasons. The Prime Minister’s Office later said the resignation was prompted by a gambling problem.

22 – Montreal skier Erik Guay announced his retirement. The three-time Olympian earned 25 World Cup medals and captured three world championship medals, including two gold, over his career. He retired as Canada’s most decorated alpine skier.

22 – Stampeders quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell was named the most outstanding player at the CFL’s awards banquet in Edmonton. Mitchell had first won the award in 2016.

23 – Nicolas Roeg, the British director of provocative and otherworldly films who gave Mick Jagger and David Bowie enduring screen roles, died at age 90. His films included “Don’t Look Now”, “Walkabout” and “The Witches.” He also cast Jagger in the thriller “Performance” and Bowie as an alien looking to save his planet in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”

24 – Laval downed the Western Mustangs 34-20 to pick up its record 10th Vanier Cup championship. Rouge et Or quarterback Hugo Richard led the way with 348 yards and two touchdowns in the air. The fifth-year QB also ran for 60 yards.

25 – The Stampeders beat the Ottawa Redblacks 27-16 in the 106th Grey Cup game at Commonwealth Stadium. It was Calgary’s first Grey Cup win since 2014. Stampeders quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell was named MVP.

25 – The Russian coast guard fired upon and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels sailing from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov. Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, charged that the Ukrainian boats entered its territorial waters without permission. World leaders condemned what they described as unjustified use of force by Russia and urged it to release the ships and their crews.

26 – General Motors announced it would close five facilities in North America, including its production plant in Oshawa, Ont., as part of a global reorganization that would see the company focus on electric and autonomous vehicle programs. The automaker said the plan would save the company US$6 billion by 2020. The closure in Oshawa, planned for the end of 2019, would affect approximately 2,500 jobs.

26 – The Senate passed legislation ordering an end to five weeks of rotating strikes at Canada Post. Royal assent was granted after Senators approved Bill C-89 by a vote of 53-25, with four abstentions. Postal workers were told to be back on the job at noon the following day.

26 – After months of stop-and-start negotiations, Britain and the European Union finally signed an agreement governing the U.K.’s departure from the bloc in 2019. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced intense opposition, including from members of her own party, in selling the deal to her divided Parliament.

26 – Stephen Hillenburg, the former marine biology teacher who thought up, wrote, produced and directed the animated hit “SpongeBob SquarePants” died at age 57.

29 – Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced targeted sanctions against 17 Saudi nationals that Canada believed were involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The sanctions froze any assets the targets might have in Canada and barred them from entering Canada.

29 – The remains of a Winnipeg woman who vanished July 11, 2015 were found in a wooded area southeast of the city. DNA testing confirmed the remains to be those of 57-year-old Thelma Krull, who left home to go for a walk and never returned. Police believe she was murdered.

29 – Ontario announced it would create performance standards for large carbon emitters under a new climate plan to replace the province’s cap-and-trade system. The Progressive Conservative government also announced the province would provide $400 million over four years to a fund aimed at enticing companies to invest in technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

30 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U-S President Donald Trump and outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement at the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires. The deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement still needed to be ratified by all three countries before it could formally take effect.

30 – The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Vice Media reporter Ben Makuch must give the RCMP material he gathered for stories he wrote in 2014 about Farah Shirdon, a Calgary man who joined the Islamic State group. Vice Media called the 9-0 decision a dark day for press freedom in Canada.

30 – George Herbert Walker Bush, who served as the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1993, died at 94. Former prime minister Brian Mulroney was among those delivering eulogies at Bush’s state funeral on Dec. 5 at Washington’s National Cathedral.

December, 2018

1 – Quebec boxer Adonis Stevenson was knocked out in his light heavyweight title fight in Quebec City and was placed into a medically induced coma.

1 – Canada acted on an American request and arrested a top Chinese tech executive in Vancouver. Meng Wanzhou is the C-F-O of Huawei Technologies and daughter of the company’s founder. The company had been under suspicion for Iran sanctions violations since at least April, and Meng is facing unknown charges brought by U-S federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.

2 – Premier Rachel Notley announced across-the-board oil production cuts would be imposed starting in January to reduce a glut of oil that had increased the price discount on the province’s oil compared with the North American benchmark. She ordered an 8.7 per cent reduction in oil production, reducing raw crude and bitumen production by roughly 325-thousand barrels per day.

3 – Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques blasted off in a Russian Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station. The rocket, which was also carrying Anne McClain of NASA and Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency, successfully docked with the space station six hours later. During his six-month mission in space, the 48-year-old Saint-Jacques was to conduct a number of science experiments, with some focusing on the physical effects of the weak gravity astronauts experience in orbit as well as how to provide remote medical care.

3 – Canadian weightlifter Christine Girard received her London 2012 Olympic gold and Beijing 2008 Olympic bronze medals in a ceremony at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. She was the first Olympic champion in Canadian weightlifting history and the first Canadian ever to win two Olympic medals in the sport. Girard was bumped from bronze to gold in London and fourth to third in Beijing after other medalists were disqualified for doping violations.

4 – The NHL’s board of governors unanimously approved a franchise for Seattle. The league’s 32nd team was to hit the ice in the 2021-22 season and play in the Pacific Division. The ownership group was led by billionaire David Bonderman and several others, including Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

4 – Spotify announced Canadian rapper Drake was the platform’s most-streamed artist of the year globally, earning 8.2 billion streams in 2018. He also had the year’s most-streamed album and song with “Scorpion” and “God’s Plan.” Drake was also Spotify’s most-streamed artist of all-time. Apple also named Drake as Apple Music’s most-streamed artist of the year in 2018.

4 – Residents of Churchill cheered the arrival of the first passenger train in the community since the spring of 2017. The only land link to the northern Manitoba community had been suspended since flooding damaged the tracks. Repairs were made after a consortium including several northern communities purchased the Hudson Bay Railway from its American owners with support from the federal government. VIA Rail trains were to leave from Winnipeg to Churchill twice a week.

4 – The government of President Emmanuel Macron announced it would suspend the gasoline tax increase that had set off three weeks of increasingly violent protests in Paris and around France by the so-called Yellow Vest movement.

4 – Canadian Yannick Nezet-Seguin brought the entire orchestra on stage for curtain calls following his first performance as just the third music director in the Metropolitan Opera’s 135-year-history. The 43-year-old led the premiere of a new production of Verdi’s “La Traviata” by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer. Gold confetti was dropped over Nezet-Seguin during his curtain call.

5 – Washington State regulators denied an Ontario utility’s proposed multi-billion-dollar takeover of Avista, citing political interference by the provincial government of Doug Ford. The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission says it found Hydro One’s deal that valued Avista at 6.7-billion dollars was not in Avista’s public interest after it became clear that the Ontario government was willing to interfere in the Ontario utility. The regulator cited Premier Doug Ford’s move after his Conservatives won power in June to force the Hydro One C-E-O to retire and the resignation of the entire 14-member board.

7 – Just two days after being named host of the Academy Awards, comedian Kevin Hart stepped down following an outcry over past homophobic tweets. Capping a swift and dramatic fallout, Hart wrote on Twitter that he was withdrawing as Oscars host because he didn’t want to be a distraction. The comedian had refused to apologize for the tweets, saying he had already addressed it several times.

8 – Shoppers Drug Mart has been granted a licence to sell medical marijuana online. Health Canada’s list of authorized cannabis sellers and producers has been updated to reflect that the pharmacy can sell dried and fresh cannabis, as well as plants, seeds and oil.

9 – Patriots quarterback Tom Brady broke the N-F-L record for career touchdown passes including post-season. He threw his 580th touchdown at Miami when he connected with Julian Edelman for a two-yard score. That’s one more T-D pass than the previous record set by Peyton Manning.

10 – British Prime Minister Theresa May faced jeers and laughter from critics in Parliament as she announced she was postponing A December 11 planned Brexit vote. She admitted she would have lost the vote by a significant margin.

Will it be a hot war with protest and acrimony, like Uber vs. taxis? Or is the outcome inevitably foretold, no matter what, as in Netflix vs. Blockbuster?

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